Ego Trip to Bountiful

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

When Britain created a national theater, it turned to Laurence Olivier. If the American stage had set out to form a national troupe, it almost surely would not have turned to Tony Randall. And it certainly would not have expected him to direct Ibsen or to cast himself repeatedly in romantic leads decades younger than he is. At the dawning of his grandiosely named National Actors Theatre, Randall recalled last week, New York Times critic Frank Rich characterized the venture as a TV actor's ego trip.

After two seasons and six productions -- one laudable, two passable, three catastrophic -- it has at least survived to start a third. Its staging of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, with Brian Bedford in the title role (and Randall not in the cast), is stirring storytelling, capably acted in a blustery, old-fashioned style. Director Michael Langham, who has joined Randall as artistic associate, gives the company a new sense of assurance and evokes a contemporary relevance that previous shows conspicuously lacked.

The story of a man who is beloved for spendthrift indulgence of his friends, then abandoned the instant his considerable fortune is gone, has been set in the jazz age and augmented with music by Duke Ellington. The semimodern dress and judicious pruning of the most convoluted language makes the text accessible, and its cynicism about the rich is timeless. But the play's rage depends in large part on the context of classical notions about the sacred nature of hospitality. These ideas of mutual obligation, almost unto ruin, were antique in Shakespeare's day, and are alien to our own. Thus Bedford wisely plays the extravagant Timon as a bit of a buffoon, easily gulled, while his fair-weather friends are made more foul by licentious excess.

If eccentric, this staging of Timon is a vast improvement over what preceded it: in the first season a murky, static staging of The Crucible, a labored, lumpen version of a Feydeau bedroom farce and a rendition of Ibsen's The Master Builder about which even Randall, who directed, can't find anything good to say; in the much improved second season, an intelligent, revisionist reading of The Seagull, a solid (and Tony-nominated) Saint Joan and the George Abbott comedy Three Men on a Horse, with Randall supremely skillful if utterly miscast as a husband in his 30s.

Whatever the strengths of Timon, NAT is not remotely worthy of comparison with London's Royal National and Royal Shakespeare companies or Canada's Shaw and Stratford festivals. If Timon is a great leap forward, Randall's next vehicle, The Government Inspector, could be a big jump back. He plays the title role, a naif of 23 -- an age Randall reached half a century ago. The irrepressible farceur says with a mildly manic laugh, "I'd like to be acting every night of my life. That's why I formed this theater." His tone sobering, he adds, "In a noncommercial circumstance, age shouldn't matter. It's all about acting, isn't it, and who has the comic skills to play these parts. I don't know anyone who can play comedy better than I can."

The NAT's audience seems to agree. Randall is the selling point to ticket buyers and potential sponsors. Executive producer Manny Kladitis concedes, "I don't know how long we could survive without him," in tones that suggest the likely duration would be a day and a half. While season subscribers have fallen from 27,000 the opening year to about 18,000 today, that is competitive with the 23,000 for the much older Roundabout, a nonprofit Broadway company that favors more contemporary, commercial work.

Nonetheless, the majority of NAT's $8 million budget comes from two patrons -- a French emigre named Laura Pels, who believes she is helping launch an American equivalent of the Comedie-Francaise, and Randall himself. He takes no salary, donates all outside earnings, and has given more than $1 million in savings to fulfill "a lifelong dream." Randall also raised $1.2 million for the first season via a one-night benefit in which he and Jack Klugman reprised their TV-series roles in the stage version of The Odd Couple. Next summer he and Klugman plan a two-month, eight-city benefit tour in which they will play the roles eight times a week.

Obsessed as he is, Randall insists he will someday relinquish the reins. He says he is looking, not too urgently, for a successor. The odds are against his building an institution that can last. But Timon finally makes the case that perhaps there is an institution that should last.